MLB

3 Daily Fantasy Baseball Stacks for Monday 7/19/21

Josh Shepardson  —  @BChad50 Jul 19th, 2021
The Reds headline tonight's top stacks in a home tilt. What other stacks should gamers consider?

Stacks are the backbone of cashing daily fantasy baseball lineups. Correlation drives upside, creating the potential to place high or even win GPPs when your selected stacks explode offensively.

This column will do the digging and the dirty work to determine which stacks are worth rostering each day. Scoring upside will fuel the stacks that get the nod. Sometimes that will lead to chalky selections, but contrarian stacks will get their fair share of love too.

In addition to utilizing the touted daily stacks in handbuilt lineups, numberFire premium members can throw these highlighted stacks into an optimized lineup using our DFS Sharpstack tool. Our hitting heat map tool is also available to premium members looking for more stacking options. It provides valuable info such as implied total, park factors, and stats for identifying the quality of the opposing pitcher.

Let's take a look at the top stacks on today's main slate.

Cincinnati Reds

The Cincinnati Reds headline tonight's stacks in a plus matchup at their hitter-friendly home park. Jerad Eickhoff is tabbed for tonight's start in the New York Mets' injury-riddled rotation. This year, he's appeared in three games (two starts), coughing up 4.26 homers per nine innings. He also has a 4.97 ERA and 6.04 skill-interactive ERA (SIERA), per FanGraphs.

The sample is small, but he's been downright lost against lefties. The 29 left-handed batters he's faced in 2021 have teed off for five homers, a 1.037 slugging percentage, and a .606 weighted on-base average (wOBA). Eickhoff's homer issues and struggles against lefties should be exacerbated at Great American Ball Park tonight. According to the ballpark factors at FantasyPros, Great American Ball Park leads the way for homers, with a park factor of 1.347.

My favorite stacking options from the Reds are a trio of left-handed hitters, including Jesse Winker ($3,300), Joey Votto ($2,900), and Tyler Naquin ($2,200). This year, Winker's pummeled righties for a .404 on-base percentage, .291 isolated power (ISO), and 172 weighted runs created plus (wRC+). Votto's been excellent against righties in a resurgent year at the dish, too, tallying a .379 on-base percentage, .227 ISO, and 137 wRC+. Naquin's the least accomplished hitter in the group, but his .215 ISO plays well in the stack.

Houston Astros

The Houston Astros are Major League Baseball's best offense against right-handed pitchers this year, producing a 116 wRC+. Jean Carlos Mejia has the dubious distinction of owning the highest 2021 ERA (7.42) among tonight's probable starters. Sure, his 4.34 SIERA suggests he's been rather unlucky. Still, the results have been disastrous.

Houston's fully capable of piling onto Mejia's season-long struggles. The right-handed pitcher has been at his worst against lefties. He's yielded a .571 slugging percentage and .404 wOBA to 78 lefties.

Houston's lefties Yordan Alvarez ($3,600), Kyle Tucker ($3,500), Michael Brantley ($3,300), and Abraham Toro ($2,400) all have merit for usage. Don't dismiss using Jose Altuve ($4,100) at the top of the order, though. He has a .352 on-base percentage, .245 ISO, and 135 wRC+ in same-handed matchups this year.

New York Mets

The New York Mets are visiting the aforementioned launching pad Great American Ball Park. They have a plus matchup, too. Vladimir Gutierrez's mediocre 4.29 ERA overstates how well he's pitched. The righty's 5.44 SIERA is more reflective of his caliber of work.

The rookie's generated an underwhelming 16.5 percent strikeout rate, walked 10.6 percent of the batters he's faced, and coughed up 1.43 homers per nine innings. His combination of a below-average strikeout rate, poor control, and homer woes provide upside to stacking the Mets. Surprisingly, the righty has been more giving to right-handed batters than lefties, yielding a .341 wOBA to the former and a .312 wOBA to the latter.

I'm not opposed to stacking anyone in New York's lineup. However, my favorite options are Pete Alonso ($3,800) and J.D. Davis ($2,800). The former has a .203 ISO against righties this year. Davis has spent a significant chunk of the year on the injured list. However, when he's been healthy, he's raked. Davis owns a .489 on-base percentage, .300 ISO, and 231 wRC+ in 45 plate appearances against righties in 2021.

Joshua Shepardson is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Joshua Shepardson also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username bchad50. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his/her personal views, he/she may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his/her personal account. The views expressed in his/her articles are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.